AMD has acknowledged a problem amid reports that its External Events Utility, installed alongside Radeon drivers, may be continuously writing data to SSDs. One user claimed the activity had reduced their drive’s reported health; company representatives said they are investigating and aim to resolve the issue in a future driver release.
The issue surfaced again on November 8 when a Reddit user highlighted reports that AMD’s External Events Utility (EEU), installed alongside Radeon drivers, may be writing data to the system drive. One user claimed the problem had reduced their SSD health by about 1% every month for 16 months, while another reported sustained writes of around 5 MB/s even when their PC was idle.
AMD is looking into the problem. In an October 21 response on its community forum, a company representative said: "Yes. We're looking into it with the aim to resolve it in a future driver release." Another representative, AMAD Vik, later added on Reddit: "This is hopefully fixed in the next one."
The reports span multiple driver versions, including Adrenalin 26.19.2 and older releases, suggesting the problem may not be limited to the latest update. AMD's October 30 release notes for Adrenalin 26.20.2 do not mention the issue.
At an idle write rate of 5 MB/s, an SSD could receive about 18 GB of host writes per hour, 432 GB per day, and close to 13 TB in a month. However, SSD controllers use caching and wear-leveling, so how much of that activity translates into flash wear is unclear. The 1%-per-month health loss claim has not been independently confirmed.
Two workarounds have been reported. The first is to stop the AMD EEU service or disable it via Windows Services. The second involves disabling Resizable Bar (ReBAR), though ReBAR can improve gaming performance. AMD has not published a confirmed release date for a fix.
Analysis
Why This Matters
- Affects owners of AMD Radeon GPUs whose SSDs may be wearing out faster than expected due to a driver bug
- Highlights the risk of software issues causing hardware degradation over time
- Users face a trade-off between mitigating the problem and maintaining gaming performance
Background
AMD's Radeon drivers include an External Events Utility that handles certain system events. A similar issue involving AMD chipset drivers was flagged last November, where a log file was repeatedly updated when on-screen elements moved. The current reports involve continuous writes even when the PC is idle, which is a different and potentially more serious problem.
Key Perspectives
AMD: Says it is investigating the issue and aims to fix it in a future driver release. A representative apologised and indicated the fix may come in the next update.
What to Watch
- When AMD releases its next Adrenalin driver update and whether it includes a fix for the EEU write bug
- User reports of SSD health loss after applying any fix
- Whether independent testing confirms the link between the driver and flash wear
Checked
12 claims in this story checked against 1 source: 12 supported.
Show each claim
- SupportedAMD acknowledged a GPU-driver problem that may be wearing out SSDs.Latest from Tom's Hardware: “AMD has acknowledged the problem. ... How much of that reported activity thus translates into actual flash wear is still unknown.”
- SupportedA company representative said AMD was investigating with the aim of resolving the issue in a future driver release.Latest from Tom's Hardware: “In an October 21 response on its community forum, a company representative confirmed that they were investigating. “Yes. We're looking into it with the aim to resolve it in a future driver release."”
- SupportedAMAD Vik said on Reddit, “This is hopefully fixed in the next one.”Latest from Tom's Hardware: “Another representative, AMAD Vik, subsequently offered a more encouraging update on Reddit, apologizing and saying, “ This is hopefully fixed in the next one."”
- SupportedA user claimed the problem reduced their SSD health by about 1% each month for 16 months.Latest from Tom's Hardware: “One Radeon owner claimed the problem had been quietly eating into their drive's reported health for more than a year, writing: "I just found out that the driver eats up 1% of my SSD health every month for 16 months."”
- SupportedA user reported sustained writes of around 5 MB/s while their PC was idle.Latest from Tom's Hardware: “Another user reported sustained writes of approximately 5MB/s while their PC was idle.”
- SupportedThe issue drew attention again on November 8, when a Reddit user highlighted reports of unusual drive activity.Latest from Tom's Hardware: “The issue drew attention again on November 8, when Reddit user ‘darklinkpower’ highlighted reports of the unusual drive activity.”
- SupportedReports involved Adrenalin 26.19.2 and older driver releases.Latest from Tom's Hardware: “Reports include systems running Adrenalin 26.19.2, as well as older releases, suggesting the problem may not be limited to the latest update.”
- SupportedAt 5 MB/s, continuous writes amount to about 18 GB per hour, 432 GB per day and close to 13 TB per month.Latest from Tom's Hardware: “At 5 MB/s, an SSD would receive about 18GB of host writes per hour. Over a full day, that's 432GB, and a month of uninterrupted activity could push the figures close to 13TB.”
- SupportedThe reported 1%-per-month drive-health loss has not been independently confirmed.Latest from Tom's Hardware: “The user's claim of losing 1% of drive health each month also hasn't been independently confirmed.”
- SupportedOne reported workaround is to stop the AMD EEU service or disable it through Windows Services.Latest from Tom's Hardware: “Users can then stop the service or change its startup type to Disabled.”
- SupportedAnother reported workaround is disabling ReBAR, which can improve gaming performance.Latest from Tom's Hardware: “The second workaround involves disabling Resizable Bar (ReBAR), which another user reported had stopped the disk activity without disabling the EEU. This, however, isn’t ideal either, as ReBAR can improve gaming performance”
- SupportedAMD has not published a confirmed release date for a fix.Latest from Tom's Hardware: “AMD has indicated that a fix is in the works, but hasn’t published a confirmed release date.”
